Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at who will bring you the column Matwick Musings and Munchings this Summer.
We are in the graduate program in linguistics at UF and are in our fifth year of studying language and teaching writing, and yes, we are twin sisters.
Matwick Musings and Munchings is a column that will engage readers from two prongs of inquiry: food and language. We hope to bring a greater awareness to each and how they are related.
Topics will range from musings (like how to make the perfect toast), observations (such as the latest food trends—Sriracha! Gelato!) to more academically minded issues such as food and identity; food history; food and ethnicity; food and gender; and food media.
We’ll bring in abstract ideas from scholars such as Pierre Bourdieu and Claude Lévi-Strauss and from food writers such as Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are”), M.F.K Fisher and Michael Pollan, but we promise to break down the concepts into more accessible terms and connect theory with concrete examples.
We hope to spark inspired interactions with food and language by ending each column with a question, or ‘The Nibble,’ to keep you exploring and thinking about the language of food in your daily life.
So, ‘The Nibble’ for this week: Take a look at the descriptions on your favorite bag of chips. What values are promoted? Do they match yours?
[A version of this story ran on page 10 on 5/22/2014 under the headline "Meet the Matwicks: Musings and meditations about food"]
